Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin – Education in Rouen and Paris; first successes in Rome

Nicolas Poussin was born in Normandy on 15 June 1594. The son of an impoverished landed nobleman, he grew up in modest circumstances and had to acquire large parts of his art education autodidactically. He received his first artistic impulses at the school in Fontainebleu and in 1662 he worked with Philippe de Champaigne on the decoration of the Palais du Luxembourg. His acquaintance with the poet Marino led to an increased interest in the motifs of Greek and Roman mythology, whereby Poussin was particularly interested in Ovis and his Metamorphoses. In Rome, Poussin worked for Francesco Barberini, the nephew and Kardinalnepoten (cardinal-nephew) of Pope Urban VIII, and made the acquaintance of other important artists including the painters Claude Lorrain and Jacques Stella as well as Joachim Sandrart, who also left written testimonies about Nicolas Poussin. Despite these acquaintances, Poussin found it difficult to gain a foothold in Rome as the majority of the lucrative commissions went to the already established Italian painters – his rivals included greats such as Pietro da Cortona and Guido Reni. Poussin’s altarpiece Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus also met with little approval; he therefore limited himself to smaller format works and thus found access to private collectors, as well as through the mediation of his friend Cassiano dal Pozzo, Cardinal Barberini’s secretary. In 1631, he became a member of the Academia di San Luca, a great honour rarely bestowed on foreign artists. 

Focus on mythological motifs and religious themes 

In 1641, Nicolas Poussin was forced to return to Paris against his will – King Louis XIII and the powerful Cardinal Richelieu required his services for the decoration of the Louvre and other artistic engagements at the royal court. Poussin, however, was not happy with this role, feuded with his colleagues, and eventually returned to Rome in 1642 – this time for ever. The cardinal and the king died soon afterwards, and so nothing more stood in the way of his work in Italy. At first, he again worked primarily for a small circle of selected patrons, which steadily grew in size. On the death of Pope Urban, Poussin’s most important patron, Cassiano dal Pozzo, lost his position, whereupon the artist was largely dependent on the commissions from wealthy Frenchmen – in his homeland, Louis XIV appointed him as ‘First Painter to France’. In the last years up to his death, in which he turned increasingly to religious themes in addition to his mythological motifs, he created his masterpiece Four Seasons, which offered art critics room for multi-layered interpretations. 

Nicolas Poussin - a unique representative of his epoch

From an art historical perspective, Nicolas Poussin is difficult to categorise. Although he worked in the heyday of the Roman Baroque, and Rome was his home and place of reference in every way, his work was clearly different to that of his contemporaries. He caused almost no political propaganda or representative large-scale works for the nobility and clergy, but dedicated himself primarily to the aesthetic requirements of private collectors. His work is first of all characterised by the use of bright primary colours in the design of garments and his meticulous study of the written sources of his time, which his friend and patron dal Pozzo helped him obtain. In the 1640s, Poussin employed a cooler colour palette, accentuating the gestures and facial expressions of his figures more clearly, thus expressing almost political opinions, against whose appropriation by French absolutism in particular the artist did his utmost to resist.

Nicolas Poussin died in Rome on 19 November 1665.